Where Were You?

The school my children then attended, had demanded yet another meeting about my child.  My hard of hearing child, who was treated so poorly, every day at this irrational school.  I dreaded these meetings, where they told me all the things wrong with my child; when I told them again and again, "She can't hear."  The hearing tests were inconclusive, so we met again and again and I complied; foolishly.

The morning was clear, their heads were not,  my heart was not.  Half an hour into the meeting the bells began to ring in the school.  The head of the lower school, who knew this was going to happen and scheduled our meeting in the middle of it anyway, said "Fire drill." I was outside lining up on Tuesday September 11, 2001  for a fire drill.  I was glad to breathe fresh air and to be away from the ignorant conversation which would quickly become a part of the past.  We filed back in and completed the stupidity. I went to my car and drove away.

I was headed home, but had to stop for dog food, because my puppy was a very picky eater and we had not successfully found something she would eat every day.  She was three months old and her ribs showed.  after finally negotiating the puppy food issue, I climbed back into my obligatory mommy mini van and turned on the radio.  You know what I heard. I called my friend Nancy, while I was driving home and she was narrating the TV reports,  the first building fell.  I was five minutes from home.

Once home my phone chains began, checking in with my mother and then my husband. I was unsure what to do about my children, their school was not close and I did not want to disrupt their day, nor did I want to scare them. When I spoke to my husband and he said he was coming home because Independence Mall was being evacuated, I went into action to retrieve my children.  Others did not do this; they felt that the children should feel safe in their school.  To me safety evaporated that day with the towers, the Pentagon, the field and the planes.

Safety is relative; it is always an illusion.  Some of us live with extreme danger every day, others are more protected by location, wealth, good luck and choices.  I am unspeakably grateful to those in our society who face danger every day, on my behalf; police, fire fighters, soldiers.

I remember looking at pictures of the ash, knowing that some of it was people.  I remember the silence of the country's planes all being grounded and of being comforted by my family gathered in the same room, preferably in my arms.  I remember the photos, walls and walls of them of lost human beings.  Photos family members desperately posted in hopes of finding their loved one, somewhere.

The end of the movie, The Bridge On The River Kwai" ends with two words "Madness, madness."   What else is in our world, but madness and love?

Nothing bad happened to me or to mine on that day; not directly.  I am tonight where I was that morning, watching television footage from that day; my head pounding, my heart breaking, again.

                                         "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"

Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the flowers gone,
Picked by young girls every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young girls gone,
Gone to young men every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young men gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young men gone,
Gone to soldiers every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
They've gone to graveyards every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Gone to flowers every one,
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

-Pete Seeger-